Was originally supposed to be a PS3 Move game and was revealed two years ago, been redone from ground up for PS4 - looks like a survival horror / bit like the films Funny Games & The Strangers kind of thing, and has Hayden Panetierre in it

Take Eternal Darkness, Heavy Rain, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and the Saw films, put them all into a blender and it'll spit out Until Dawn, a third-person adventure-horror game running on the Killzone: Shadow Fall engine. This a cinematic thriller that jump-scared me no fewer than three times during a 20-minute playable demo, and I thank it for that.

Until Dawn for PS4 bears no resemblance to the game first shown two years ago. That's because developer Supermassive Games threw out what they had and brought in Hollywood writers to re-do the story, which, based on what's in the trailer and in the middle-of-the-game segment I played, revolves around a group of eight teenage friends who've started to go missing in the creepy bowels of a cabin during the winter. That there are so many playable characters is where the Eternal Darkness whiffs waft from, while the plot – in my demo, Ashley and Chris discover clues that their eventual clown-masked captors see fit to torture the teens after somehow knowing every exact detail of some terrible, humiliating act they committed against their missing friend Sam the year before – recalls the basic outline of Jennifer Love Hewitt's star-making turn in I Know What You Did Last Summer. You'll encounter vague dialogue choices (i.e. responding as sympathetic or not to Ashley's fears) reminiscent of Heavy Rain. And the Saw influence? Well, Until Dawn has a bit of torture porn in it too.

None of these are bad things, to be clear. In fact, they seem to be congealing into a video game that's already memorable, just from my 20-minute slice.

My demo began unexpectedly, with an "interactive survey" that would apparently tailor the gameplay based on my responses. For instance, I was asked, "Are you male or female?" and instructed to choose between "I would save my friends" or "I would look out for myself." While some were self-explanatory, others, such as "Movies are more frightening" versus "Games are more frightening" leave me wondering just what effect they'd have on a full playthrough. Future test drives of the same section while making different choices, unless of course the consequences of these picks won't reveal themselves until elsewhere in the bigger picture of the final game. Which, by the way, a Sony rep promises will have multiple endings and a far greater number of branching paths along the way.

With player-controlled Ashley and Chris descending down into the depths of their cabin in search of their missing friend Sam, I descended into the basement of the house. Naturally it gets creepier as you go, with only a disturbing dollhouse – complete with disfigured dolls arranged inside to represent the aforementioned humiliating moment that the group's antagonist somehow knows about – giving you the willies on the initial floor. Well, that and the ghostly teenage girl clad in sheer white who wanders the halls.

Without spoiling too much (it would be criminal of me to ruin this scare-fest's surprises), Ashley and Chris are eventually abducted by an aggressor wearing a demonic clown mask – despite my brave attempt with Ashley to stab the kidnapper in the chest with a pair of scissors I'd picked up earlier. Both characters awoke, bound to chairs facing each other with a small table between them. On the table is a handgun. A distorted voice interrupts their terror over a speaker to announce that Chris can either kill himself or Ashley, and that the survivor will get to live. The situation is compounded by a pair of large, rotating power-saw blades hanging above their heads that begin slowly descending down (hello, Saw!). Chris tries in vain to shoot at the assembly, but to no avail. I pointed my gun at Ashley and...fade to black. Demo over. But I'm assured that anyone and everyone can die in the game, with the rest of the story being affected.

Controls are simple, if yet somehow a bit clunky. Use Sixaxis on the Dual Shock 4 to wave Ashley's flashlight around, while X and R2 interact with objects from afar or up close, respectively. Moving with the left thumbstick and aiming the flashlight where you wanted it to go was a bit strange, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it cumbersome. And fortunately there was nary a meandering Quick-Time Event in sight. A framerate in the 20s is my only other quibble, but with the release date so far away, it's not something I'm going to stress out about at this early stage, but it's worth noting.

Now powered by Killzone: Shadow Fall's tech and reinforced by Hollywood screenwriters and motion-captured acting performances by Heroes' Hayden Panettiere and Twilight's Rami Malik, Until Dawn's new direction is certainly a welcome one. I look forward to seeing how many in my party I can keep alive in my first playthrough...and then seeing how few I can complete it with after that

Absolutely loved this. Completed it in just four sittings, think it took about 8 hours (plays out almost in real time in 10 chapters over the course of a night).

Undoubtedly influenced by horror films of the 80s/90s and classic games. Games it reminds me of in places - Heavy Rain, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, The Last of Us, Alan Wake. Movies Saw, Halloween, Friday 13th, I Know What You Did Last Summer etc etc. It plays like a mashup of all of those. The graphics are excellent, as are the score and effects, it feels like you are playing a horror film. Playing with lights off and headphones on, I actually jumped 5 times, which is more than Ive done with any actual horror film in as long as I can remember.

Didn't really know how it would play from the reviews I saw, but basically there are 8 characters, you take control of all of them at different times, and are presented with decisions to make along the way - the choices you make have consequences later in the game (for example, I decided one thing between two characters about halfway through the game, then later on, the other character had the chance to save the one I chose, but decided to let him get killed cos of my earlier decision). It shows you flashbacks at times when your previous decisions have affected something.

You make loads of choices throughout, but there are about 20 that are called Butterfly Effects, so there could be a load of different ways the game plays out for each person who plays it. It shows the % of each decision that other players have made, about halfway through I thought 'I want to make the decisions that I probably shouldnt', so I made it into the best kind of horror film/game, rather than trying to keep everyone alive. As soon as I finished it I went back in and started again, finished the first chapter but Ive now decided I am not going to go through it again and just leave it as what I got

There are quite a few QTE moments, but they are the most intense ones I've ever seen in a game, if you are being legged for example, you sometimes have less than a second to press the right button and there are no retries if you miss them, it will just change the story as appropriate.

It is just class. The game I have enjoyed most this year, so top of the pops for me

Just finished this. Absolutely loved it, one of my favourite console games ever. It's like being in a horror movie, and the choices you make really do seem to matter. Will probably play through again and try keep everyone alive!